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		<title>So this is loneliness ... &lt;https://y.st./en/weblog/2017/06-June/30.xhtml&gt;</title>
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		<header>
			<h1>So this is loneliness ...</h1>
			<p>Day 00846: <time>Friday, 2017 June 30</time></p>
		</header>
<section id="general">
	<h2>General news</h2>
	<p>
		I was in the laundry room checking on my clothing in the dryer, and a pair of people came to drop off a printer at the giveaway table.
		Of course, I took it up to my room to investigate it.
		It didn&apos;t seem to be compatible with my machine at first, but I did a quick Web search to see if there was any information on if this printer model was known to be or not be compatible with Debian.
		I didn&apos;t find anything specific, but I did find a webpage telling me to install <a href="apt:cups">cups</a> to make Canon printers in general function.
		It also told me to install some other things, but those were already on my system apparently.
		Additionally, there were other steps, but none of them were even needed in my case.
		All  had to do was install cups.
		Well that was easy.
		I think I now have a working printer!
		It needs ink and paper though, of which I have neither.
		At some point, I&apos;ll look into what kind of cartridges it takes.
	</p>
	<p>
		Chase sent me a third copy (or is it fourth now, I forget) of that stupid form that tells me not to fill it out.
		I&apos;m starting to get very peeved with Chase at this point.
	</p>
	<p>
		Yesterday, my mother left me a bunch of their old paperwork to shred.
		I got a lot of it shredded today, but it was kind of hard on the shredder.
		It stopped functioning after a while.
		The motor runs, but the blades don&apos;t turn.
		I dismantled the thing, and there are physical cracks on the inside now.
		One plastic tab is broken off entirely.
		That&apos;s the first break I saw, and I thought I might be able to make the thing work anyway.
		The second and third cracks though ... look like they&apos;re somewhere more important.
		The plastic containment around the blades is broken.
		I fear that if I get the thing working again, it won&apos;t be safe to actually use.
		Drats.
		I guess I&apos;m without a shredder for now then.
	</p>
	<p>
		At work, my fatigue was easily visible on my face, so a few of my coworkers asked how I was doing.
		I explained my story.
		Only one shift leader thought to even ask me which sex I&apos;m falling for though, making the total number of coworkers that now know only two.
		I want it to be known, but at the same time, I don&apos;t want it to be some big announcement.
		I tried dropping various hints, but I don&apos;t think anyone caught on.
		They&apos;ll know soon enough though.
		I feel a bit bare without my asexuality ring.
		I need to replace it with something, like a rainbow wristband.
		Then I can feel a bit more like me and a bit less hidden.
	</p>
	<p>
		It seems my new friend at work likes Kellee Maize&apos;s music.
		Nice!
		It&apos;s hard to find people that even recognise any of the music I listen to.
		Free culture artists don&apos;t get as much exposure as they deserve.
	</p>
	<p>
		My <a href="/a/canary.txt">canary</a> still sings the tune of freedom and transparency.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="dreams">
	<h2>Dream journal</h2>
	<p>
		I had an incredibly bizarre dream.
		I only remember the last bit though.
		Some weird shit had been going on before that though.
		Someone mentioned having conquered their own identity and taken control of it.
		They meant they understood who they were and were in control of how others perceived them.
		The other person, who was highly secretive, said that the first had no idea what conquering one&apos;s own identity even meant.
		I then saw inside this second person&apos;s mind as they thought about their own identity.
		As I looked around in their mind, I saw every piece of their identity had been narrowed down to two pieces of data: a word and a number.
		I remember neither, now that I&apos;m awake.
		But their address, their name, and I forget what other specifics ... they <strong>*all*</strong> matched.
		Every single thing about them matched, if it had a name and/or number to it.
		They&apos;d manipulated their own lives so <strong>*all*</strong> this information would be the same.
		Why would they do that!?
		At first, it felt like it had something to do with keeping mind readers from being able to read them as well.
		A mind reader would be confused when all they could see was these two scraps of information.
		And that&apos;s when the person noticed me looking into their minds.
		At first, I thought this whole thing was fabricated; they&apos;d focused on this fake identity hard enough as to keep me from knowing who they were.
		But their words made me think otherwise.
		&quot;I forgot you&apos;d be here, Vanessa.&quot;
		I was this Vanessa person; someone sharing a name with my real-world sister, I guess.
		However, they hadn&apos;t been conjuring this image for me.
		They&apos;d really lived their life with such control that aside from these two scraps of information, there wasn&apos;t anything else to their identity.
		Just the same two strings, everywhere in different forms.
		The number was sometimes in Roman numerals, but it was always the same number.
		They then expelled me from their mind, mentally conjuring some blob at the point I was visually seeing through and sending it toward my vision further.
		It spasmed and writhed rapidly as it came at my non-existent body, ostensibly to spook this Vanessa person into dropping the connection to their mind.
		Instead, the combined shock of their core identity and this blob caused me to wake up.
	</p>
	<p>
		As I write this, I&apos;m crying.
		I have no idea why, but I&apos;m crying.
		I have no idea what the dream means, but ... are these tears of fear?
		From beginning to end, tears rolled down my face as I recounted the dream fragment in text, though after finishing, I was fine.
		That is, until I went back and reread the dream, then I started crying again.
		What does this mean?
	</p>
</section>
<section id="mental">
	<h2>Mental health watch</h2>
	<p>
		Based on my inability to love romantically, I&apos;ve always said I only have half a heart.
		I guess somewhere amongst the pieces of my broken self, I found the other half.
		But my mind is in a less-fractured state than before.
		I should feel more whole, more complete.
		So why do I feel <strong>*less*</strong> complete?
		Why do I feel like I need someone to complete me?
		This makes me feel powerless and inadequate.
		I started feeling what I believe to be loneliness for the first time in my life today.
		I thought I&apos;d been lonely once before, but now I think what I felt before was some variant of boredom.
		This new feeling ... it&apos;s like an aching in my chest, between where I think my stomach and heart are, along with a strong yearning for a man I can wrap myself around.
		It&apos;s highly distracting and annoying.
		I can easily see why most people try to pair up.
	</p>
	<p>
		I&apos;ve also come to realise that <span class="redacted">[REDACTED]</span> is still alive and well, and likely will be for the foreseeable future.
		He was never an outer shell constructed to protect what was left of my psyche as I&apos;d previously thought.
		He was what <strong>*remained intact*</strong> of my psyche.
		It was harder to hurt <span class="redacted">[REDACTED]</span> due to how little of him there was.
		Alex is a boulder; <span class="redacted">[REDACTED]</span> is a grain of sand.
		Which one can you chip away at?
		As I piece myself back together, Alex grows stronger because there&apos;s more of them.
		<span class="redacted">[REDACTED]</span> only appears to grow weaker out of comparison to Alex&apos;s strength.
		One thing you have to remember is that Alex can never be weaker than <span class="redacted">[REDACTED]</span>, as <span class="redacted">[REDACTED]</span> is <strong>*a part of*</strong> Alex.
		<span class="redacted">[REDACTED]</span> is being drown out almost entirely, which is why he no longer has much control.
		He doesn&apos;t seem to be fully integrated with the larger chunk of me though, as he still has separate thoughts to interject on occasion, thoughts that are decidedly his and not the thoughts of Alex as a whole.
		Eventually, he should settle in and reintegrate.
	</p>
	<p>
		I&apos;ve also come to think I might be bisexual like Vanessa, once fully healed.
		Previously, I was noticing people of both sexes.
		I was scared by this, then I started preferring <strong>*women*</strong>.
		Having a preference scared me further, then it all went away.
		I went back to being completely asexual.
		Soon, my sexuality returned, but this time, I was gay.
		I think I was more ready to accept having a man in my life than a woman.
		In a same-sex couple, a breach of trust could be detrimental to myself.
		However, in an opposite-sex relationship, a breach of trust could result in a baby, which would be detrimental to the world.
		The worst part is that I&apos;d&apos;ve been a part of it.
		Honestly, some part of me fears sabotaged or failed condoms.
		I&apos;m not the woman, so I can&apos;t make sure an abortion happens.
		Even if we agree beforehand that an abortion is absolutely necessary if something goes wrong, she could change her mind and I&apos;d have no remedy.
		I&apos;d hate myself if I let this happen, but at the same time, I don&apos;t want to mutilate my body for sterilisation.
		Likewise, if the woman mutilated <strong>*her*</strong> body to become sterile, I would feel she had less respect for herself than I have for myself, and would be an unsuitable partner for me.
		There simply is no way to win without a leap of trust, and if I took that leap, I could lose big time.
		I&apos;m not yet ready to even <strong>*think*</strong> about any heterosexual relationships.
		At some point though, I&apos;ll need to revisit this and figure out if I&apos;m actually bi.
		For now, I think accepting the gay part is enough to move on and gather other pieces of my mind for reintegration.
		After all, there are emotions and such that this unlocks that I can now process.
		I never actually wanted a relationship with a woman though, I only was seeing their attraction.
		It&apos;s still possible I&apos;m fully gay.
	</p>
	<p>
		I spent the past few days listening to proprietary music that happened to be about being gay.
		I shouldn&apos;t be listening to proprietary garbage, but I think it helped my gayness sink in.
		Now that I&apos;m more accepting of my current state, I started listening to healthy, free music again.
		It would be nice if I could find some free, gay songs though.
		The only love/sex songs I have are decidedly heterosexual.
	</p>
</section>
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